7/26/2004 01:38:49 PM|||Amy|||The dog got out this weekend.

It was Friday night. I had something I had to do and had forgotten to take my cell phone with me. So, when John called to tell me that Sammy was gone, I didn't get the message and of course, felt incredibly guilty about the whole thing later. However, not to worry - this story has a happy ending.

John spent the better part of the night walking around the neighborhood, calling for her, looking for her under bushes and between houses. He might have taken the car, but figured that she wouldn't be visible from the street. So, he ran, walked and basically trolled the area within a square mile of our house hoping that she would just appear out of nowhere. When I arrived home, he greeted me at the door with the news.

That morning I drove and drove up and down all the streets of our neighborhood hoping the same thing, that she would just turn up out of thin air and there would be no need to explain to Bear that Sammy wasn't coming home.

Having turned up not one lost dog, I went home and laid down in the bed with Bear. I felt so sad and guilty. The night before I had been telling a friend how I really didn't think Sammy was long for our home. She was too exuberant, and she seemed to focus all of her energy on torturing Monkey. A few days before she had taken a running leap at Monkey, and knocked her to the ground. Literally. We heard Monkey's head hit the rocky stone paving that covers our back porch. I was ready to send Sammy out the back gate and shut it firmly behind her. So, when Sammy disappeared, I realized that even if Sammy is a menace now - she probably won't always be and I actually felt sorry she was gone.

A little later that morning, just after Bear awoke and all of us were getting dressed for the day, a friend stopped by the house. I haven't seen since Bear's baby shower, and his showing up out of the blue was a weird and wonderful surprise. He had his two little boys in the car, and so I went outside with him to meet his kids and talk. As we stood there, a woman walking two dogs passed by us. One of them stopped and sniffed at my feet, but I didn't really notice until the three of them were walking away. I told my friend that one of those dogs looked just like Sammy.

After Brian left, Bear and I got ready to go out in the car again and look for Sammy. Bear was convinced that if someone had found her, they would put up a sign. So, while we drove around the neighborhood again looking for a lost Sammy, Bear looked for a sign. And sure enough, he found several. They all said, "Found Dog. Black Lab" with a phone number. We also found a few that said, "Found Dog. Black Lab (Young Female)." Bear was convinced that this was Sammy, so we rushed home, called the number and left a message.

A lady called us back a little while later, and confirmed that the dog she had was probably Sammy. She lived just one street over, so we grabbed the leash and jogged over. Sammy met us on the walk, and as it turned out - the lady who had found her was the same one that had walked by me that morning with Sammy in tow. I just didn't realize that the dog she was walking was actually Sammy.

We let Sammy have free run of the house that day, and have been treating her like a princess since she's been back. Our little Sammy. My love for her has been renewed - at least for right now.
|||109086867766187172|||Sammy's Big Night